Due to growing up homeschooled, I am still friends with many Christian homeschoolers on Facebook. Some of them are…well, let’s just say, goldmines of bloggable material (well-intentioned though they may be). Except, since I usually have enough to do critiquing patriocentric material, I don’t actually blog about most of the stuff they post.
Until today, when something especially…interesting…showed up on my timeline.
Let’s just start at the beginning of the item in question. I think the problems will become clear enough on their own. Continue reading →
“A&E” refers to Anna Sofia and Elizabeth Botkin, authors of So Much More. I chose the abbreviation to save space and time.
So in the last post, I promised I would explain how A&E aim to convince their readers to follow their vague and self-contradictory modesty rules. As it turns out, A&E do this by making several promises of their own. I suspect, though, that they won’t be able to follow through on them, mostly due to the inconvenient fact that they can’t control the general (male) public’s behavior. Let me explain. Continue reading →
“A&E” refers to Anna Sofia and Elizabeth Botkin, authors of So Much More. I chose the abbreviation to save space and time.
At the beginning of chapter 4, A&E write:
Before we get into submission, we should let the reader know that we are fully aware that “submission” is seen as a dirty word to our generation, especially when connected with pejoratives like “hyper-patriarchal tyranny.” The Church at large is made very uncomfortable by these passages, because they seem to violate our fallen sense of what’s “right” and “fair.” The few Christians who recognize that this command does actually appear in the Bible and therefore needs to be obeyed, tend to be ashamed and apologetic of the fact. Why is this? What is there in God’s pattern for authority and submission that is not wonderful, wise, loving, and perfect? We should rejoice in it and make the most of it!
After reading this, I thought to myself that A&E might as well wear a big neon sign on their heads, reading “I AM 100% CLUELESS ABOUT ABUSE IN THE CHURCH.”Continue reading →
“A&E” refers to Anna Sofia and Elizabeth Botkin, authors of So Much More. I chose the abbreviation to save space and time.
As I suggested last time, chapter 4 of So Much More is a very important one. Not only do A&E lay out the precise rules of their gender bureaucracy for all to see, they also come out and say exactly what we’ve all known and/or suspected for years, in no uncertain terms: fathers stand in the place of, and are the nearest earthly equivalent to, God, in relation to their daughters. Continue reading →
The “TBB” in the name of this post means that it is part of The Big Box series. If you’re new to Scarlet Letters, read the introductory post to see what the Big Box is all about.
Well, after recovering from last week’s disaster post, I’m pleased to report that What to Expect from a Twelve-Year-Old (hereafter referred to as 12YO) will not be a repeat of Why Satan Wants Your Firstborn. That’s not to say that 12YO didn’t have its fair share of wrongheaded ideas, just that they weren’t quite as extreme or ridiculous as the ones in Why Satan Wants Your Firstborn. And since I’m short on time (it’s Saturday night – all hail Hester’s mad time management skillz) and not in the mood for a lengthy or clever introduction, let’s get right down to business and take a look at Davis’ central thesis in 12YO: that some Biblical accounts give us specific developmental goalposts for our children. Continue reading →
The “TBB” in the name of this post means that it is part of The Big Box series. If you’re new to Scarlet Letters, read the introductory post to see what the Big Box is all about.
Okay, confession time. Sometimes, I have a love-hate relationship with this series. I know many people have been helped by the Big Box. I know it’s even more relevant now that patriarchy, in the wake of Vision Forum’s spectacular implosion, has become more decentralized and its proponents’ relationships even murkier than they already were. But it still happens occasionally that when Monday night rolls around, and with it the prospect of listening to yet another hour of patriarchal drivel, I cringe and put it off till Tuesday. I think this week’s post will show you why. Continue reading →
The “TBB” in the name of this post means that it is part of The Big Box series. If you’re new to Scarlet Letters, read the introductory post to see what The Big Box is all about.
This post is a first for Scarlet Letters. Not because there’s anything particularly special about the post itself, but because it will be the first Big Box post to analyze a lecture by Doug Phillips since the rather…erm…exciting events that have transpired at Vision Forum over the past week and a half. But never fear, dear readers: romantic indiscretions, no matter how lengthy or inappropriate they may have been, will never stop the Big Box. And so we press on, this time into the nebulous, but also strangely familiar, waters of How to Evaluate a Suitor. Continue reading →
The “TBB” in the name of this post means that it is part of The Big Box series. If you’re new to Scarlet Letters, read the introductory post to see what The Big Box is all about.
I might as well begin this post with a confession. Every time I have to read, listen to, or write about the Botkin sisters, sooner or later I always end up listening to and singing this song (any hardcore ballad nerds in my audience will recognize it as Child #10):
The reason I end up at Two Sisters whenever I write about the Botkins should be obvious by now: irony. The sisters in the ballad could not be more unlike Anna Sofia and Elizabeth Botkin if they tried. First, I’m sure Elizabeth would never be caught dead accepting a gay gold ring and a beaver hat from a suitor without her father’s permission (in fact, perhaps Two Sisters is really about the perils of unsupervised courtship 😀 ). Second, Anna and Elizabeth would certainly never get into such hysterics over a boy. They are, after all, important purveyors of the idea of “emotional purity,” which I touched on before in my response to S. M. Davis’ lecture Seven Bible Truths Violated by Christian Dating. Continue reading →
The “TBB” in the name of this post means that it is part of The Big Box series. If you’re new to Scarlet Letters, read the introductory post to see what The Big Box is all about.
Well, it’s finally time to cover one of patriarchy’s most (in)famous practices: courtship. As anyone who grew up in the Christian homeschool “bubble” will tell you, courtship is pushed hard from all quarters in that community, often by organizations like Vision Forum that promote “purity”-based products, programs and events (see here and here). But what exactly is courtship, and how does it differ from dating (which courtship’s proponents often malign)? S. M. Davis’ lecture will give us lots of opportunities to explore those important questions. Continue reading →
Scarlet Letters 